Hunger Games Series and The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes

If you're one of those people like me who enjoy a good dystopian themed story then you probably read and/or watched the Hunger Games Series. If you are a fellow Hunger Games fan then you may have heard of the new prequel novel that was released this past May called The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I bought this book from Target (not knowing that it is currently free on Kindle Unlimited) and finished it within a few days. I haven't read a book that fast in years and it felt good to get into that reading groove again.

For those who have yet to hear about the prequel – it follows our least favorite president (well fictional president) as an 18 year old during the 10th Hunger Games. It's the first year that the games are having mentors for the tributes and instead of using past Victors as we are used to in the main trilogy, the graduating students in the Capitol get that honor. And if you haven't guessed it Coriolanus Snow gets to mentor the female tribute from good 'ol District Twelve.

Without spoiling, what I like about this book is that it gives insight to how the earlier Hunger Games played out and how different they were from the ones Katniss and Peeta were in. The book touches on things that seem to indicate why and how changes were made to the games. It is also interesting to read a story from the perspective of someone who becomes the main antagonist in the later books.

After reading the prequel I decided it would be cool to reread The Hunger Games to see if any of the things mentioned in the prequel come up. I forgot how much I loved that series so immediatly after finishing The Hunger Games, I watched the first Hunger Games movie and then started to reread Catching Fire. In a span of two weeks I manged to finish 3 Hunger Games books and all four of the movies. I have yet to read Mockingjay again since that was my least favorite of the trilogy but I may be going back to pick that up again just to say I went through the whole series again.

Thinking About The Hunger Games in Today's Times

I think another reason I got super into the Hunger Games again is because in a weird way it reminded me of what is going on today. People are fed up with the police, corporations and the government for ignoring minorities especially Black people for years. Even though the Black Lives Matter movement has been going on for a while, it took until recently for other non-Black people to get fed up and start going out to protests and speaking up. With the Hunger Games, I highly doubt people were excited about sending kids to kill each other but it took 75 years of killing children and an act of defiance from Katniss to set off that spark. That's exactly what happened with George Floyd's death. It was a spark that finally woke people up after a long time of police brutality.

As I went back through the series it was crazy how much of it parralells to today. While this book was just a fictional story to satsisy young adult readers, a lot of themes are important to think about. Rereading this series as an adult gives these stories more weight. It makes me wonder what other books or movies meant for teens/young adults are relevant in today's times.

But to conclude, if you are a Hunger Games fan, I highly recommend reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and see if there's anything different about how you perceive the series now than when it originally came out.